


Considering All the Angles

by Queen of the Castle (queen_of_the_castle_77)



Series: Three Companions Who Stopped the Doctor From Turning Himself Human (and One Who Didn't) [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_of_the_castle_77/pseuds/Queen%20of%20the%20Castle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He might be able to feel it the turn of the universe, but sometimes Jack has to remind the Doctor that it doesn’t necessarily revolve around <i>him</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Considering All the Angles

**Author's Note:**

> Human Nature/The Family of Blood if the Doctor hadn’t run away from Jack on Satellite Five at the end of the Parting of the Ways.

It wasn’t unusual for them to have to run for their lives without even really getting a good look at what was chasing them. Trouble came along, they ran. Figuring out the details tended to occur once they were in relative safety. It’d become habit, really, since barely a day went by without someone wanting them dead.

Jack loved it.

And then once they’d managed to regroup, the Doctor always tended to go off on a spiel of which Jack couldn’t quite interpret more than the basic gist. Much like the speech the Doctor was currently giving him.

Jack loved that less.

Still, even though it was all a fairly familiar progression of events that seemed to go hand in hand with life on the TARDIS, somehow it felt different this time.

Jack let the Doctor dash about madly explaining things at five hundred miles an hour, because there was no point interrupting him until Jack had a better grip on what they should be arguing about. Because Jack was quite sure, based on how out-of-control the Doctor was looking at that moment, that an argument of some kind would be necessary. Besides, if he stopped the Doctor before he’d had his hyperactive rant for the day (or, at least, one of them, since that didn’t always seem to fill his quota), the Doctor would probably just clam up obstinately and go about doing whatever he had planned without letting Jack in on it. That could be dangerous for both of them.

Ever since they’d lost Rose to the parallel universe, Jack had been learning that where Rose might have a calming effect on the Doctor, Jack was more likely to just aggravate him into doing something stupid. More stupid than usual, that was.

So he listened patiently while the Doctor said things like “This watch is me” that might sound crazy to Jack’s ears if he hadn’t been travelling with the Doctor for nearly two years now. He bore his way through the Doctor ranting at him (like it was somehow specifically Jack’s fault) about irresponsible Time Agents leaving their Vortex Manipulators lying around for any old homicidal alien to nick; he didn’t even point out, as he’d dearly have liked to, that he disliked the Time Agency even more than the Doctor did. He even listened to the Doctor explain why the Family wanted him without immediately saying a word.

But when the Doctor went to attach the watch to the contraption he’d identified as a ‘Chameleon Circuit’, Jack reached out and caught his hand.

“What about me?” he asked evenly.

“Oh, well, you’ll just have to blend yourself in wherever we land. Ex-Time Agent, travelling through time and space with me for a while now, you’ll be fine.”

Jack scoffed. “Yeah, not really worried about that. I’m not the one who constantly fails to follow the rules of active camouflage.”

“Then you’re worried about me not remembering you, are you? I’ll have a little residual awareness, so you shouldn’t have any trouble slotting yourself into my fabricated life. I’d tell you to maybe avoid flirting with me so not to raise suspicion if we end up in a more primitive time, but I’d only be wasting my breath. Although, considering the danger, maybe it’d still –”

Jack was starting to get a little bit ticked off, so he interrupted the Doctor. He didn’t do that nearly often enough. It was strangely satisfying.

“I never thought I’d say this to you, Doc, but you’re not thinking straight. Maybe becoming human and losing your memories for a time appeals to you because it means you can forget about Rose,” and seeing the Doctor’s face cloud over, Jack hurried his point along, “but it’s not the right decision _here_. If you’re that desperate to spend some time living some made-up life, I’ll go along with it _after_ we’ve dealt with this threat. Lord knows I don’t think it’ll help, but I’ll try anything if it means you’ve at least admitted to yourself that you’re hurting over losing her. So am I. You know I am. But this,” he gestured at the Chameleon device, “is not going to help right here and now.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Doctor very nearly snarled, sounding for a moment much more like the man Jack had first met, all dark and overly domineering.

“I do, actually. Because you’re missing a pretty big point here. When I asked ‘what about me’, I wasn’t talking about how I'll cope. You should know me better than that. I meant that this Family, who wants to become immortal, might not be all that focused on consuming a Time Lord with limited regenerations when there’s an all-they-can-eat immortal buffet in the room. And I’d say that that quality’s probably unique enough for them to track as well as they can track you.”

The dark expression on the Doctor’s face morphed into consternation.

“Oh, you didn’t think I’d figured it out?” Jack smiled humourlessly. “I was exterminated by Daleks, and I woke up. I was electrocuted by an Ood communication device, and I woke up. Carrionites stopped my heart by some sort of magical blow, and I woke up. I’m getting the picture. I know I can’t die. And I know _you_ know that I can’t die. I saw the way you looked at me after the Game Station.”

The Doctor, after a long pause, nodded once, curtly, in acknowledgement.

“So you can turn into a human and hide out all you like, but while you’re off happily living a life unaware that aliens even exist, said aliens will be carrying me off and using me to extend their life so they can spend millennia killing their way across the universe.”

“You’re right,” the Doctor admitted, suddenly seeming very tired. For the first time since meeting him, Jack didn’t doubt for a moment that he was a full nine hundred years old. He wondered whether he’d be that exhausted when he reached nine hundred, or nine thousand, or –

Jack cut his own thoughts off with a shudder. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to think about such things.

The Doctor tossed the fob watch back into the storage unit under the console where he’d found it.

“I know I’m right,” Jack said. “And we’ll talk about whether you still want to use that watch later, trust me. But for right now –”

“We have to go deal with the Family,” the Doctor agreed.

“Yes. So, plan?”

The Doctor’s grin was not as wide as it might have been a year ago, and it was touched with sadness (though Jack didn’t know whether that sadness was for Jack’s plight or was a symptom of the same mourning the Doctor had been going through for what seemed like forever). But still, it was a grin. That was more than Jack had seen in ages.

“Oh yes,” the Doctor said. “I never just have the one plan. I come up with six impossible plans before breakfast, don’t you know. Turning human was Plan A, you see. But do you know what Plan C is?”

“What happened to B?”

“C is better.”

Jack laughed. “All right, then. What’s C?”

The Doctor dashed to the console and pulled down a lever, abruptly changing their direction with a jerk. “First we run, which is always Plan A with me, really. Then, when we land on some backwater planet in the middle of nowhere where not even lost travellers might accidently happen by, we deal with them like we’d deal with any petulant creature that’s hasn’t yet lived a very long life.”

“How’s that, then?”

“We take away their toys. Jack, how would you feel about a new spaceship to replace that one I blew up that one time?”

* * *


End file.
